Your parents provide for you as you grow up, but what happens when they ask you for money? Should you give money to your parents?

The answer depends on both you and your parents.

When Parents Need Money for Younger Siblings

My friend, Joan, became friends with another girl, Leslie, in high school. Leslie had an unstable home life and eventually moved in with Joan and her family. When we all graduated high school, Leslie went to college for engineering and also worked full-time to support herself.

Handle Financially Toxic Parents

At regular intervals, Leslie’s mom, who still had four younger children at home, called Leslie and asked her for money. For years, Leslie gave money to her mom because she felt guilty. After all, her stepdad had just left, and her mom had to provide for the younger kids.

When Parents Are Bad at Money Management

Now, I’m on the flip side and am old enough to have friends who have adult children. One of those “friends” (and I use the term loosely), Heather, continually writes on Facebook about her money troubles. These posts always appear as thinly veiled requests for money.

In the most recent post, Heather wrote about the financial troubles she and her husband have and went on to say that their 20 year old son, who is working two jobs and taking a full load of college classes, is giving them money to pay for their utilities and gas to and from work.

However, in that same week, Heather posted about going out to eat two different times and having a manicure and pedicure as well as getting her hair highlighted.

Say what?!

Should You Give Your Parents Money?

As an adult, if you find yourself in the awkward position of deciding whether or not to give your parents money, there are a few questions you should ask yourself:

Can you afford it? Do you have the money to give your parents? Can you loan them money without causing your own financial hardship?

Why do your parents need the money? Are your parents in a truly tight financial spot because of unemployment, sickness or another issue? Or, do they have a history of mismanaging money and now, like so many times before, they’re in a bind?

Are they trying to change their situation? If your parents are facing financial difficulties, are they taking steps to try to improve their situation? Are they wisely cutting expenses and learning how to manage their money so they won’t be in this position again? You probably can’t give them advice here because they likely won’t listen, but you can recommend your favorite financial blogs or books to help them get a better handle on how to manage their money.

Should You Cut Your Parents Off?

If you do decide to lend your parents money, how often can you do so? You should set boundaries for the limit of your generosity in the beginning. Leslie, the girl I went to high school with, regularly gave her mother money for eight to ten years. Then, as her younger siblings grew up and left home, Leslie saw that her mother often caused her own drama and financial woes.

She cut her mom off about 15 years ago, and now she rarely hears from her.

I don’t know how long Heather’s son will lend his parents money, but I hope it’s not for too long. There’s no reason why a son should be financing his mother’s highlights and pedicures when he himself is working two jobs to pay his way through college.

Have your parents ever asked to borrow money for you? If so, how did you handle it?

Are you a parent? If so, have you ever asked to borrow money from your children?

If you’re like most families, you’re busy. You spend too much time in your car running from activity to activity, and you spend too much money buying food out on the nights you don’t have time to cook. Your house may be in a state of perpetual chaos.

This upcoming year, especially February through May, my family will be very busy. To make sure that we remain organized, I’ve started using several tools and strategies. Even though we’ll be busy, I plan to still have time to make food at home, keep the house clean, and maintain my budget.

Tools I Plan To Use

Be Organized!

Motivated Moms. Motivated Moms is an app or PDF file of a list of weekly chores meant to keep your home tidy. I love that they think of tasks I always forget like clip the kids’ fingernails and clean the toaster in addition to more basic chores like vacuum the livingroom, etc.

I bought the entire year PDF for $6. The chores for each day will be assigned to me and my kids based on level of difficulty. Between the four of us, I’m sure we can knock out the chores for each day in 20 minutes or less working together.

Subscribe to eMeals. For busy families, eMeals can literally save you hundreds of dollars. For just $69 for a 12 month subscription, which averages $5.75 a month, you’ll get a custom meal plan for the week as well as a grocery list for all of the items you’ll need. eMeals has 20 different meal plans to choose from including Paula Deen, slow cooker, Paleo, and many others. Just choose the one that works best for your family. Best of all, most meals are never repeated, so you get variety all year long!

Strategies I Plan to Use

In addition to the tools mentioned above, I plan to implement a few strategies to stay organized.

Get up early. I really don’t like getting up early, but doing so let’s me get some of my freelance work done and also gives me time to exercise. If I exercise early in the morning, I know it will get done. If I wait until the evening, I almost never exercise.

Make freezer meals. In the upcoming months, we’ll have three days a week where we will be gone all day, only coming home in time for dinner. I’ve already started making freezer meals. On the three busy days a week, I’ll simply put the freezer meals in the slow cooker. We’ll come home to a hot cooked meal, eliminating the dinner scramble. On the other days, I’ll use eMeals’ meal suggestions.

If you don’t have a full day to devote to a freezer cooking session, just double the meals you are making for the next two weeks or so and put one half in the freezer.

Make a schedule and stick to it. I plan to make a schedule I can stick to and follow it. That will help me manage my time. For instance, I do one load of laundry a day; I’ll start it when I get up at 5 a.m. so it’s done before the day gets too busy.

Keep a regular sleep schedule. When people get busy, they tend to skimp on sleep. I plan on going to bed no later than 10 p.m. so I’ll be able to get up at 5 a.m. I know skimping on sleep will ultimately make me less productive as the days go on.

Do you have a busy schedule? If so, what tools and strategies do you use to stay organized and resist the temptation to spend money on conveniences?

What if you could invest your money knowing that your investments were making a difference? We all want to make a difference. We usually do so by volunteering our time or by making cash donations to a cause. We do it with intent. But, we have to actively do it as well. I’ve talked before about the benefits of passive income, or income that is generated with little to no work on your part. Can we do more through passive giving?

American Century Investments is an investment company. As of March 1, they manage nearly $140 Billion dollars in investment assets. But, that isn’t what makes them special. What makes them special is what they do with their profits.

ACI was founded by a man by the name of Jim Stowers in 1958. Jim was a cancer survivor, as is his wife. In 1994, they founded the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. To help fund that institute, they created an endowment of $2 Billion that was made up of some cash gifts, and a 40% equity (ownership) in American Century Investments. Why is that important?

Because of that ownership stake in ACI, more than 40 percent of American Century Investments profits have been distributed to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, a non-profit basic biomedical research organization. The Institute is the controlling owner of American Century Investments and has received dividend payments totaling over $1 billion since 2000.

$1.2 Billion in dividend payments. I’m going to let you think about that for a minute.

$1.2 Billion dollars is a lot of money. And because of the social thinking of the Stowers’, that money is going towards medical research. Research that could provide clues to cure disease.

Now, I don’t want this to come out sounding like a sales pitch. I want you to do your research before you invest your money with anyone. I do. If you’ve got a financial planner, talk to them before you do anything. But, what I do want to say is that, all things equal, if you can invest with a company that does a great deal of social good and still get equivalent returns with equivalent expense ratios, then wouldn’t you do that?

Ultimately, any financial decision you make shouldn’t be based on emotion. It should be based on numbers and facts. 9 out of 10 times, if you make a decision based on emotion, it’s going to be the wrong one. I know that. You should too.

But, I also know that my grandmother is a cancer survivor. My mother is a cancer survivor. I lost an aunt to cancer. Knowing that a portion of the profits of the company that I invest my money with is going towards research that could someday make cancer a curable or preventable disease is a pretty powerful motivator. An emotional one, to be sure, but powerful nonetheless.

All things considered, when it comes time to choose investments in the future, I’m going to make sure that American Century Investments is included in the options. That doesn’t mean I’ll pick them every time (or at all), but because of their structure, and the chance to do a little passive social good, they’ve earned a spot in the selection process.

What about you? What do you think of the idea of passive social good? How about the idea of an investment company with a higher purpose?

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